Page 77 of Little Blue

“What do you need me to explain?”

“Why am I here?” It’s a question she’s asked before, more than once.

“There is a reason I took over as Pakhan. A reason my father entrusted me with the crueler side of things.” I think she’s holding her breath as she waits. I continue, “The first time I saw a man killed, I’d been six. He’d stolen something from my father, although I don’t recall what. I do recall the way he begged when he realized what would befall him. My father showed mercy then, as he put a bullet between the man’s eyes. That was the moment I understood there was something different about me, because I’d not only been unaffected—I’d been bored. Disappointed, even. I believe that’s when my father suspected that difference, too. Because next to me, my older brother was pale and sticky with sweat. I left the office with my brother next to me, and in the hall, I remember the way he leaned against the wall. The way his hand left a mist of sweat on the wall, and how he gasped for air. His composure had been stripped away the moment we were no longer standing before our father. Through his gasps, he’d told me that his heart was racing so fast, he feared it might rip from his chest.” I look deep into her blue eyes; certain I could lose myself in them, if only she’d let me. “I remember being confused by his words, even as a six-year-old boy. Because I couldn’t feel my heart beating in my chest at all.”

“You weren’t afraid?” She shakes her head in slow horror. “You were just a baby, Ilya, that’s terrible.”

She’s missing the point.

“The first time I killed a man, I was eleven. The man had been one of my fathers’ trusted soldiers. He’d had a syringe in his hand, and he’d been about to stick it in my younger brother’s neck. I’d thought it had been an assassination attempt.” I pause, regarding the still way she holds herself in my lap. “My hobby of collecting knives began as a young boy. Hunting knives, mostly.”

“I’ve seen them in your office.”

I smile, because I like knowing she’s taken note. That she doesn’t simply sit and stare into space when she’s sitting with me in the evenings. “It had been a Damascus blade I’d carried that day. I didn’t think, I threw the blade and caught him in the soft spot between his shoulderblade and spine. He’d made a noise then—a roar. It alerted the other men to the commotion, but he dropped the syringe. My father tortured the truth from the man. It hadn’t been an assassination attempt, but a kidnapping attempt. Whatever was in the syringe was meant to make Kane sick enough to be taken to the hospital, where my father’s rival would be able to take Kane.”

She gasps, a shaky hand lifting to her lips. “Oh, my goodness.”

I remind myself that our lives growing up were very different. Even though her life has been anything but easy, she was still innocent to the horrors of the underworld. The betrayals. The games.

I keep my voice soft. “As a show of my father’s appreciation, he offered me the honor of killing the man. He walked me downstairs, to a room that looked, and felt, and was often used, as a dungeon. There was blood on the floor. The man naked, and he was missing fingertips and toes. Cables dripping blood rested on a steel table next to an open case of implements used for torture.” Her face pales, but I need for her to understand, so I press on. “My father watched as I took it all in without a blink. I felt nothing but a spark of curiosity. You see, my first obsession was the heart. My own, to be specific. Why did my heart not race with excitement? Why didn’t it skip with fear? Or thunder with arousal? I looked at that man who was as good as dead, and then I looked at the gun my father handed me. I knew what he intended, for me to shoot him between the eyes as he had the man in his office that day all those years ago.”

“Ilya—I don’t—I can’t?—”

“I saw my blade laying on the table, dry blood painted the swirls of the Damascus steel. I traded the gun for my blade and split the man in two down the middle. He took his final breath when I shoved my hand up under his ribcage, closing around his beating heart. The way it raged, Little Blue—I could feel it in my palm before it went still. It was magnificent, and yet I felt nothing in my own chest.”

Her hands cover her ears now as tears stream silently from her eyes. My soft, sweet, innocent Little Blue.

Circling her wrist with my hands like cuffs, I pull them from her ears. She’s trembling again as she stares at me in horror, her body twisted to the side in my lap. The blanket has fallen to expose the delicately pale skin of her shoulders, and the swell of her breasts.

She’s beautiful even in her fear.

“Ilya…” she pleads.

“I’ve killed more men than I’ve bothered to count, fucked more women than I care to admit, and ran more miles than I’ll ever be able to track—all in the attempt to feel my own heart beat in my chest. To feel alive like every other living being I’ve ever encountered, feels.” I pause to hold her eyes that shimmer and shine. That unfeeling organ squeezes in my chest. I smile. Her eyes drop to my lips. “I took you, Irelynn, because when I first saw you in the casino that night, it was like my heart had been gripped by a fist. When I sat next to you, inhaling the sweet scent of cookies, my heart thundered. When I stood next to you and watched you sleep, my heart skipped with every breath you breathed. When your blue eyes land on me, my heart races. When you kiss me, I. feel. Everything.”

Her lips are parted now, but I think she’s holding her breath.

“I took you, Irelynn, because you’re the first person—the first thing—to make me feel alive.”

Thirty-Two

Irelynn

“Say something,” Ilya’s demand is quiet. Although it’s tender, it’s filled with a power that I now understand knows no bounds.

“I don’t know what to say.” I can hardly make my voice work. “I’m afraid of you.”

“I will not hurt you.” He leans forward, holding me captive by my wrists to press a kiss to the center of my forehead.

A shuddering breath tumbles over my lips as I squeeze my eyes closed. This is all so much more messed up than I thought. It’s so complicated.

“Please,” I beg. “Please, Ilya, let me—just let me go to sleep.”

He gives his head a slow shake. “Not now, my heart.”

“Please.” All I want to do is crumble. I want to break apart as I sob my heart out into his pillow, shattering beneath his blankets. I’m not even sure if I want to cry for myself or for him. For the little boy who never had a chance to become anything other than this hard man.

“Not with the nightmares I’ve just spoken to you so fresh in your mind.”

---